amazon Kindle now in UK

[ErnestTheBavarian]

Anyone seen you can now get amazon kindle in UK? Am overexcited at the thought of santa coming. Anyone tried one?

[paranoidmother]

YIPPPEEE i've been wanting one of these for ages - must point it out to DH..

[paranoidmother]

Only thing is it comes with a US charger so where can we get a US Plug to plug it in to?

[deepdarkwood]

[ErnestTheBavarian]

travel adapter from dixons?

If it's just a normal plug, you could just cut the us plug off, and replace with uk plug. If it's a transformery charcger type plug (tech speak) the it'd have to be trvel adapter.

Most of our appliances have just had the plug chopped and replaced.

excited about being able to enlarge font and switch to audio or backt o reading.

What happens if it breaks? Anyone know? Do you loose all your title, or if it's replaced can you download them again (free) on new one?

[CMOTdibbler]

The books you buy are backed up in the Kindle store so you can just redownload them if you need to.

I really, really want one - I read very fast, so travelling means lots of books to carry

Does anyone know what the page turn rate is like ? The Sony was so slow it would have annoyed me far too much

[paranoidmother]

I think it's very quick from what i've heard the page rate

[ErnestTheBavarian]

Don't you just trun it when you want - buttons on either side of screen? Or do you specifically want automatic?

I am hankering for all the dictionary/info/font size/note features. I really want to get myself one, plus it'll be a life saver of an idea of what to get dh for Christmas

[paranoidmother]

it's suppose to be brilliant and much better than the e-reader.
it will read the stories to you as well as you can read the stories to. Ahh I want one now.

[CMOTdibbler]

Yes, you tell it when to turn, but the Sony takes a few seconds to bring up the next page, which is annoying

I have just gone and ordered one. Can't wait !

[ErnestTheBavarian]

ooh, how much did it charge you? Did it add on import duty automatically? What was your total charge in £? Ta

[ErnestTheBavarian]

sorry, CMOT, meant to say, just watched the kindle video and it showed the page turn as basically instant. have a look the vid is quite good and will make you salivate

[bran]

I have a Sony and I like it. The page turn is actually not as annoying after a while, I find that I anticipate it better and don't notice the delay any more than I do when I'm turning the page of a real book. It's fantastic for travelling as I would normally pack at least 4 thick books for a fortnight's holiday.

The things that annoy me about the Sony reader are being tied to Waterstones to buy from, the limited range of books and having to pay more for an e-book than the same book would cost in paper form from somewhere like The Book Depository or Amazon. I would definitely consider changing if I can get a better range of books from Amazon for the Kindle.

[ErnestTheBavarian]

amazon say there's 350, 000 title plus newspapers and magazines. Being in Germany, it would be fab to get eg the times delivered daily, or indeed, any english langauge book within the minute rather than waiting a week and paying well over the odds.

Plus, as dh is such a bookworm, it would cut the clutter in our house considerably - we have piles of books in the bedroom, as all the (many) bookshelves are overflowing

[bran]

Having read a bit more on Amazon it seems as though it's going to be just as expensive, if not more so. New releases will be between $11.99 and $13.99 which is quite heafty I think, even with a favourable exchange rate. They do say that there are 70,000 title priced under $5.99, but obviously there's no guarantee that any of them will be ones that I want.

Having said that, I did a quick search on a couple of authors that I wanted to buy for the Sony but couldn't, and the Kindle store does have them. But I could (and did) order paper copies of the books for just over half the Kindle price which is quite a difference IMO.

[fishie]

i'd love an electronic readery thing. but the ereader is the most right handed gadget i have ever seen (i am lh) and i do not like that amazon is seeking world domination in this field.

[CMOTdibbler]

It was $389 including customs duty, delivery and a cover . I had asked for one for Christmas though, so will get money from mum, PIL etc towards it.

I see it as a complement to paper books, rather than a replacement. I intend to buy rereadable books for it that I know will stand up to being read and reread as it will be my plane reading - I need at least 4 books to just get me to the US and back, and it's a right pain.

You can charge via USB which is convenient, rather than having another charger to carry

[bran]

fishie, I read my Sony with my left hand. It's much more comfortable that way as my left wrist supports the book and I have my right hand free for bar of chocolate cup of coffee. I'm right-handed.

[ErnestTheBavarian]

fishie - the kindle has the 'next page' button on both the left and right of the screen, so would it not be fine for a lH person? Sorry, I don't fully appreciate the challenges you face.

[EverySingleStar]

I really hated the reader, used it once then sold it - don't think I'm cut out for electronic reading really - I miss the feel of a book in my hands!

[ErnestTheBavarian]

CMO _ let us know when you get it, eh? I'm trying to find someone who can bring me one from US - it's something like £50 import/delivery! And I want 2 - for me & dh. £100 extra is a bit fruity

[MissAnneElk]

I've just been googling this morning for book readers and had spotted that the Kindle could now be ordered. I had been thinking of one for DHs birthday next week, but if I'm going to go for this it would have to be for Christmas instead.

CMOT US$389 doesn't seem too bad including even a cover. Cheaper than the Ereader touch which I'd looked at. Update us when it arrives!

[blueshoes]

bran, the book prices you quoted were in dollars. Is that because you can only download the books off the Amazon.com site?

If so, do you or anyone knows whether it is generally cheaper to buy the kindle version or the paper version of a book?

[wannaBe]

it seems like it's being rushed into the UK - US Adaptor, having to download the books from the amazon site - etc.

We don't have the infrastructure in the UK to support this - in the US you need never connect it to a computer and the newspapers etc arrive on it in the morning if you order them...

[CMOTdibbler]

They have just sorted out the 3G connection in the UK, so the newspapers will arrive automatically just as they do in the US. They just haven't put everything onto Amazon UK yet - website says that will happen soon

[bran]

As I understand it from the Amazon website you have to buy from Amazon.com and so are buying in US dollars. It's basically still aimed at the US market but they have introduced a roaming feature which means that the Kindle can be marketed abroad. It seems to me that a non-US owner would be functioning as a US owner who happens to be abroad. So you buy books in US dollars plus a $1.99 surcharge for buying from "abroad".

On the whole it's the same price or cheaper (depending on where you buy from) to buy paper books. If you take the cost of the reader into account it's obviously much cheaper to buy paper versions. The benefit for me of a reader is that it's small but can hold a lot of books and there's no waiting time for books to be delivered.

I'm hoping that as the market opens up there will be more opportunity for competition and prices for ebooks will drop. I think it would make sense from the publishers pov to make prices lower as, in a sense, it's mostly profit, there are no printing/transport costs. The publishers also gain because people will have to buy new if they want to read an electronic version, you can't sell, buy second-hand, share or swap ebooks in the way that you can paper books. I reckon that's at least 5 years in the future though so I'm not going to bother buying a different reader until then as I'm happy enough with the Sony.